


To Look once more into Each Other's Face

by j_marquis



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blind Character, M/M, More Tags As I Write More, Rating might go up, blind pov, closeted romance, duty versus love, the crystal is a finicky lawful neutral
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-09-26 10:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9892196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_marquis/pseuds/j_marquis
Summary: The crystal has crowned a new king. Lucis will survive.The crystal is a heavy burden for those who wear it's blessing.





	1. A fearful hope was all the world contained

They found the crystal. It was dark, it was heavy, it was just like any other rock. Still, the team who found it feared to touch the thing that protected them, lifted it out of the ocean in chains and barricades. Boxed it up in heavy steel to bring it back to the Citadel. They didn't know where else it could go. Even if the Citadel was still in shambles, a memorial to the line of Lucis more than anything else, it was where the crystal had always been.

A team brought the crystal home.

Ignis had never seen the crystal, and he knew that he never would. But when they brought it to the Citadel, he sensed it. He knew, before Gladiolus told him what they had found. Before Cor warned him against touching it. Before Iris took his hand and brought him to the room where it lay. In wait. He knew it was waiting. He didn't know what for. All he knew of the crystal was that it protected them. That it took Noctis, once, and it made him a King. It was the power of the line of Lucis, the line now dead.

But it soothed the people. He heard murmurings, all through the Citadel, as the people left returned, that the crystal was in it's rightful home. And whatever gave hope to the survivors of the last ten years was good enough for him. They still had no ruler, no order, just the help of those who remained. The guidance of those who had lived through the long night. And that was what they called it, in those early days, the long night. Like no one wanted to admit how long. And Ignis could say nothing, because, in many ways the night never ended for him.

His king was gone. His eyes were gone. What little family he had died long ago, and the men who remained, the men he had called a lover, a brother and a friend, were distant at best. Treated him like glass. Even ten years on, when they fought the daemons, the night and the Astrals and he held his own, Gladio still tried to guide him by hand through the Citadel they knew too well. Prompto still explained things to him, like he had gone stupid as well as blind. Like they hadn't lost just as much as he had. It would be easier to hate them. To hate the loss of his eyes, to hate the death and the darkness and the madness that brought them to this point.

He couldn't hate any of it.

After all, the dawn had risen. The crystal was in Lucis, and the world was starting to rebuild. What more could he ask for? His own life was a moot point, as long as he could help the world learn to stand once again in the daylight.

He met a child, when people first started returning to Insomnia, who had never known daylight. A small thing, by the sound of her footsteps, she asked him if he had helped to bring them home. He didn't know what anyone had told her, that a broken city she never knew was home. He didn't ask. He told her yes, he had fought the daemons so that she could see the sun. 

She asked if he could see the sun.

He told her he could feel it.

Ignis didn't want to go near the crystal. Not after so many had died in want of it's power. Noctis, Nyx, King Regis, Luna. So many gone, some he hardly knew. But he felt their loss as harsh as he felt anything else, and he stayed too far away from the unused War Room where they had brought the thing.

It called to him.

It told him he could have everything back, and he dreamed in vivid color he no longer remembered. He dreamed of the honeyed amber of Gladio's eyes when he laughed, the red of the sunrise, rich browns of fresh coffee, and he forgot it when he woke. The crystal told him he could have it back. He could have back greens, and blues, and sunrises and the crystal clear ocean and stargazing late at night when no one could see him taking comfort in the simple touch of Gladio's hand. No one would take his arm to lead him places, no one would read letters and missives aloud in that agonizing slow pace that implied he needed more time than they did to understand.

The crystal offered him power.

He didn't want it.

"Does it call out to you?" He asked Gladio, late one night, in the little times they had alone.

"What?"

"The crystal. Does it call to you?" He took Gladio's hand off of his waist, laced their fingers together, leaned back into the sold weight of him, the comfort of warmth and a heartbeat that wasn't his own.

"No. Maybe you can hear something, well, because," he didn't answer, just touched one of the scars over Ignis' eye.

He didn't flinch. He had learned not to. "Perhaps. But it's unsettling, to say the least."

"What's it saying to you?" Gladio stroked his hair, urged him to relax back, so Gladio could hold him closer. He loved the affections, small as they were, short as their time together tended to be. There was nothing anymore keeping them from living openly, it was simply habit. First, they were afraid of the reactions of the people in the Citadel, who regulated their lives. Then, Gladio's fear of ending the Amicitia line by falling in love with someone who couldn't give him children. Then, the night struck, and it was simply that no one noticed. And now they had a country to rebuild. No time to be in love. To fall in love.

And now this, the call of the crystal.

"It's offering me my eyes."

"Why don't you take it?"

"Because I don't know what it would want in return. The crystal slowly kills those who it grants power, didn't you see that?"

Gladio buried his face against the back of Ignis' neck. "But it also saved us all."

"It would be rude not to deliberate terms with an incomprehensible power, wouldn't it?" Ignis let a smile touch his face. "Perhaps I have let fear get the better of me."

"Hell, I'd be scared too, if something that powerful was calling out to me." Gladio was trying to be reassuring, he knew that much, tried not to be annoyed. He just wanted to help, to prove to Ignis that he understood, in some way. "But, I think, maybe, we should find out what it wants, in exchange."

"What if I don't want my eyes back?"

"Do you?" There was no judgement in Gladio's voice, no hesitation. He knew, and Ignis loved him for it, that Ignis could make his own decisions. He could decline the crystal's gift, and Gladio would think none the less of him for it.

"I don't know yet." Ignis admitted. "I think it depends, well, on what it wants."

He didn't mind, then, when Gladio walked alongside him, held his hand. It was a reassurance, not a platitude. He was frightened. He didn't want to face the crystal. He wanted to hide in Gladio's bedroom and never find out what it wanted when it offered him his eyes, the colors of the trees and of the sky after it rained.

It was all shockingly anticlimactic. Like the crystal knew it had visitors, had time to prepare. Time to explain to Ignis, in the barest terms, what it needed. The crystal needed a king. With the line of Lucis gone, it needed someone to serve as it's will, to protect the people, as it was always meant to. The crystal did not see itself as a force for evil, or for good. Simply something to protect the people of this world. It cared not that wars were fought for it, that it's means of bringing an end to the Starscourge, The Accursed, had trapped them in night for ten years. It cared that it's people were still walking the world. And it needed a king.

When faced with that, with protecting the world, he had no choice but to accept.

He would not let it give him his eyes. He did not want to know what he would see, with the power of the crystal. But he would rule, and he would protect. He had to.

He took the ring in the crystal's hollow, and he put it on.


	2. The Pall of a Past World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, there's a little intimacy at the end.

The people of Lucis spoke in hushed tones of their new king, like they didn't quite understand. The blind man, of no title and no name, little more than a servant of the King of Light, was to rule them? Of all people, the crystal chose him? If he could rule, and rule well, then it would be a blessing. The people who straggled, broken and beaten, back into the city wanted to accept him. They wanted him to be their king.

And if he ruled well, and he restored their city and he helped to rebuild the world, then it didn't matter if the crystal's gift would kill him. It would be a life well lived. And Gladio, Gladio would move on. He would find a way, he was stronger than that and Ignis knew it. If Ignis could just do this, just rule, and rule well, and make something stable for the people of Lucis as time went forward, moved on, away from the darkness. He hoped he could be enough.

There was no one who could make a king's garments for him, so Gladio helped him pick out something relatively clean, undamaged. His suit would have to do. He didn't feel like a king, even with the weight of the crystal's ring on his hand. He didn't know what he looked like, had to trust the soft praise in Gladio's voice as he felt gentle hands pushing his hair away from his face. He didn't trust himself, his hands were shaking, he felt weak. Needed Gladio beside him. And as the King's Shield, that's where he would be. No matter how much it hurt.

He had to address Lucis. Had to speak for them, show himself, tell them it would be alright. He didn't know if it would be alright. He barely knew what to do. He was holding them together, he knew that, every day there was another wave of people coming home, another disaster, rebuilding, physically, mentally, emotionally.

First they wanted to blame him for the end of the line of Lucis.

Then they wanted to claim he hadn't done enough.

The city was still in shambles.

Raiders were attacking the supply lines.

The daemons were gone, but what about the monsters?

It was his job to assuage their worries, find solutions. He didn't know what he could do. He couldn't move fast enough, solve every problem. Only three people still living knew what had happened in Insomnia, only three people still living knew that Noctis Lucis Caelum had to die so they all could live. He hated himself for not doing enough. Hated himself more when they looked at him and wondered where the right king was. He couldn't give the people what they wanted. All he could do was try to ease their pain. His own pain didn't matter. It didn't matter how they looked at him, he couldn't see. It didn't matter what the crystal did to him, the country was more important than his life.

It wouldn't matter if he had to let Gladio go. Wouldn't matter that even the thought choked his throat, made him wonder if he could still cry.

He hadn't cried since he was a child. He wondered if he still could.

He didn't want his eyes back. He didn't want to see what he had become.

Instead, he stood tall and he faced his people. They were not his. They were the crystal's people, and he was an extension of that. King Ignis, they called him to his face, and he didn't understand. The Blind King, they called him when they thought he didn't hear. That one made more sense. In more ways than one he was the Blind King, he was running blind through this, trying to save, to salvage what he could.

He stood tall and he told them they could rebuild. They were working together, they had to work together, to help each other and make a new world. It had been ten long years of night, and decades even before that of war. He knew what they had suffered. He had been right there, with them, when the madness that had overtaken Niflheim destroyed Insomnia. He had been in Altissia when the Leviathan woke. He had fought daemons in the night by their sides. He knew what his people had gone through. Knew better than most.

They were not his people. He had to remember that.

Had to remember when they celebrated their new king they were celebrating the crystal. That there was still talk, in places they thought he wasn't, about whether he was proper for this. Scientia was not a historied name, not a name with any real class. He was not Lucian nobility. He was a nobody, picked out to serve the king. Not to become him. But they celebrated him all the same, there, in the throne room. He couldn't sit in the throne. He thought he didn't belong. No, he knew he didn't belong.

He promised the people who gathered, those who listened on radio waves across the continent, that the world would heal. That he would guide them, they would have peace. They needed peace. He promised to bring them peace. He had served a king, sat in negotiations and held his own even as a boy. He could pretend to be a king, until he was one.

Prompto told him he sounded regal, as the people dispersed, left the throne room empty. He pulled Ignis into a hug, treated him with the same tease, informality he always had. Things felt right. Iris told him he looked like a king. She didn't know how to treat him anymore. Cor told him he served well. Cor was growing old, he heard it.

Gladio took his arm and led him from the throne room. Took him to his old rooms, not the king's chambers, took him to the place in the Citadel where he felt safe. And held him tight and kissed his cheeks, and his scars, and told him he had done well. Told him it was over, he could rest a little while. That he spoke with such strength, he was honored to be his shield.

"I don't want a shield right now." He whispered.

"What can I be for you?" Gladio kissed the dip of his eyelid, where no eye sat behind.

"Just Gladio. Please, just be my Gladio."

Gladio took his head in his hands and kissed him. Edged him back to the small bed, oh, it was still there, he realized, when the backs of his knees hit the mattress and he was made to lay back. He heard Gladio's knees hit the floor, knew where he was going even before he felt the rough stubble over the thin fabric of his dress shirt. Kisses against his stomach, the insides of his thighs. Gladio worshiped him without words, undressed him only as much as he needed, took him in mouth and loved him with all he could offer. It was more than making love. It was desperate and hidden and he had to bite the back of his hand to keep from crying out. Gladio left no evidence, put him back to sorts.

"Rest, Ignis. I'll be here. You can go back to being the king when you wake. For now, I've got you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aftepes.tumblr.com


	3. And War, which for a moment was no more

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks all for bearing with my slow and odd update schedule. I promise I haven't abandoned any works. Just a slow writer, me.  
> aftepes.tumblr.com

In his dreams, he could see. In his dreams, he remembered the honeyed gold of Gladio's eyes, in his dreams he remembered the Insomnia skyline, the way it stood the day they left. He remembered the bright red of blood when one of them was injured, the crookedness of Noctis' smile. The things they had lost. He dreamed of things he had never seen, the reports Gladio read to him, the rebuilding of the city, the strength Accordo still held, the ruins of Niflheim.

By day he made treaties and pacts with what remained. With the stragglers of Niflheim, he made peace. They had wanted war as much as he had, most of them had never known anything else. They were eager to make peace, as unpopular as it made Ignis. He heard whispers, those who had lived through the war, hating that he would make peace with their enemy. They didn't know. They didn't know of the Accursed, the one man, daemon, all but a god who warped a nation, made war and made night. They only knew how long Niflheim had been their enemy. They only knew the wars, and they wanted to hate him for peace.

Still, he made peace. He reached out his hand, the available resources, to help.

He dreamed in vivid color what remained of a country he had never seen. He dreamed of the monsters that wandered the barren wastelands of a city lost to madness. Dreamed of the survivors who reached out to Lucis for peace, the vivid blue of eyes he would never see. Blue, like Prompto's, the vivid almost purple of manufactured humans. The only ones who remained. He knew firsthand how human they were. The orange of the desert lands and the ice colored blue where they had felled Shiva. Places he had never seen.

And he dreamed of Altissia, of the Leviathan, of the blood that was the last thing he truly saw, filling his vision, dreamed of the way Gladio had called out to him. He woke and he brokered deals with their representatives, deals for strength and resources and assistance. Woke and they had sent men who knew about trade deals and imports and the parts of ruling a country they never much worried about in times of war. Woke and he was king.

Dreamed and he could see.

The crystal called to him again. Something was coming, something was happening, the world was not right. And the crystal said nothing, no, of course not, but he knew it with as much certainty as he knew anything. Something was coming. He knew it and he could do nothing.

They tried to give him the royal rooms, bedchambers made for kings. He tried to refuse. But Gladio insisted, told him he had to act like a king, take the gifts the people offered, take the luxuries with grace and softness. So he let them, there were so many people in the Citadel now, so many people come to Insomnia, he let them give him the king's chambers. Where Noctis should have been. And at first it was hard to sleep. At first he could only lie in the massive bed, curled up in the dark, and wait for the dreams when he could see. Wait for Gladio to come to him, lie down and gather him into his arms.

Gladio insisted he was still the King's Shield. He insisted he would protect Ignis, serve at his right hand, and he was there for him. Oh, he was. He read him the reports that came in near constantly from other outposts, from the Citadel, from Insomnia. The messages from countries trying to rebuild. From what was left of Tenebrae. He tried not to think of Tenebrae.

Gladio walked beside him and offered his hand on steps and he was always within reach. When it was too dark, when the Crystal called to him, when the ring made for only the True King burned and made him feel weak, made his body run cold he could reach for Gladio, he would be there. He would help Ignis walk tall, and when he was certain the king's rooms were safe, he would go to Ignis and he would help him rest.

And it felt like there was peace. Like they could build the world anew.

He dreamed, in vivid color, of what it had been like. What the war had been like, the ruined soldiers brought back from the places beyond the wall. He dreamed of the daemons, screaming and crying out in a language he could never understand. But in his dreaming he understood. He understood they were crying out for their families, crying out for someone to help them, please help them, they didn't understand. What had happened to them.

He understood.

They had been human once, too. They knew no more what had been done to them than he did. In his dreaming he understood the cries, the sadness of the daemons and he understood the encompassing darkness that had permeated the daemons. He dreamed in vivid color of the magitek soldiers, the flames of their eyes and he knew what they had been. And he wondered what it said of him, that he had killed them all without discrimination.

He dreamed of the starscourge, that oil slick inky blackness that the Crystal had brought with it, with the Astrals, in the meteor. The curse that came with their power. He dreamed of the pain, the slow death, that only the Oracle could heal. He dreamed he could take the darkness away, dreamed that he could make it right. He dreamed he could see, dreamed he could cry, as he watched Gladio slip away into that tar like infinite black of the starscourge.

He dreamed in such maddening color he could hardly stand it, watched the world crumble away from him once again. A world he had just brought back, laid low and the only things he could heal were the things he could reach. And he grasped for it and he cried out for it but he couldn't touch the darkness that swallowed everything.

He woke to the darkness he couldn't reach.

Gladio pushed a cup of coffee into his hands, kissed his cheek and did not bid him to rise from the bed.

"We've been asked to go to Tenebrae. Aranea Highwind says they found something."

"What is it?"

"She's not sure, but she thinks it might be a new kind of daemon."

"So she asks the blind man to look at it." Ignis smiled, wry. The coffee wasn't as good as it had been before all of this.

"No. She asks the King of Lucis for his help."


	4. Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air

It was decided they would fly to Tenebrae, there were no threats of airborne daemons anymore, no enemy ships to shoot them out of the air. Peace was strange, it was this whole new world opened to them, a daylight Ignis could sense, if he couldn't see. Peace was something unfamiliar and strange, something he had never lived with, never really known.

If he could call this peace. 

Peace was not the sensation of flight, reports read aloud to him about the thing they had found in Tenebrae, inky and black like daemon blood, coiling and moving alive. Peace was not the polite distance Gladio kept, sitting beside him but not touching, the large sword at his side, knowledge he may have to play King's Shield once more. Knowledge that in this supposed peace there were still threats. The ring of the Crystal weighed heavy on his hand and he could see it, in his mind's eye, the glittering, dangerous thing that King Regis had always worn. He knew Noctis had worn it too.

He had never seen his Prince as his King.

He didn't know what this ring looked like, only that it was warm, it was heavy, and he could feel it draw at him the same way he assumed the old power had. He could taste the magic, sometimes, in his mouth, bitter and aged and uncaring. It had once offered him his sight. He had never asked the cost. He had always known it would be too high.

"Do you remember Tenebrae?" Gladio asked him, touched his hand, and Ignis realized how lost in his thoughts he had become.

"I remember when we stopped there, on the way to Gralea."

"Sorry, I thought, maybe you remembered more. My dad said once that's where you were from." Gladio turned his hand, fingers traced over an old scar near his wrist, over the ring.

"Oh, no. Not really. I was young when we left." Ignis looked away, or, he turned his head away, like he could avert his eyes from Gladio's care, from the bad memories.

"Sorry." Gladio mumbled, Ignis felt his coarse fingers against his cheek. "You should sleep. I'm sure they're going to put us straight to work when we land."

"What, no royal reception?" He teased in return.

"Aranea's still running the show there. Gods, could you imagine her trying to plan a royal welcome party?" He felt more than heard the rumble of laughter in Gladio's chest.

Ignis allowed himself a smile at the idea of the mercenary turned leader trying to plan a formal party. He'd bonded with Aranea, perhaps more than the others had, enough to know that there was not an ounce of formal elegance in her entire form. Elegance, yes, in the way she wielded her weapons, in the turn of her head and the soft waves of her hair when she let it out of it's ties, but no formality. He had to admit to himself, truth be told, he might have harbored a small crush for a short while.

Still, there was no one else he would rather have scrapping together what was left of Tenebrae, helping them heal.

Gladio wrapped his coat around Ignis' shoulders, drew him close. And he realized belatedly that he had been cold, all but shivering, and he sunk into Gladio's warmth, reached for his hand, held it to his heart. He didn't like to sleep much anymore, didn't like the vivid dreams, dreams of the thick darkness like the Starscourge, dreams of blood streaming down his face, cold, like the night had been for so long.

It was so cold in his dreaming.

"Hey, Iggy, time to get up." He felt Gladio nudge him, kiss his cheek. "We're landing."

He pulled Gladio's coat closer around his shoulders when he sat up.

"Keep it for now you're fucking freezing." Gladio adjusted his hair for him, he could feel the smile where he kissed his forehead. "Feeling okay?"

"I am, nothing to worry for." Lying was as simple to Ignis as breathing.

"There you are." He could hear Aranea's smile, see it perfectly in his head. "Your little blond friend told me you were king. Didn't know you'd look the part so well."

"Thank you. I rather don't feel much of a king right now."

"Travel get to you?"

"No, just the circumstances. You called us out to look at something?"

"Don't know if look's the right word. But big guy here'll probably describe it pretty well. And it's not the only one we've found. Just the only one that hasn't melted when we touch it."

"Melted? You touched it?"

"Oh don't get your panties in a bunch Highness. We touched it with a very long stick. In controlled circumstances. Veritably scientific." She led them away from where they had been instructed to land, he could almost see the path they took, through the garden near the train station, the station for the Oracle's palace.

Flowers had begun to bloom once more, he could smell their faint sweetness, and Gladio placed a hand on his arm to lead him through the path. It wasn't the same. The visual memories he had of Tenebrae were so old, still at a child's height, the visiting Prince he had served, the Prince who had kept him at the end of it all. Memories of the good hiding spots in the garden, of servant's quarters and passages through the walls so he would not be seen more than necessary. But he had no way of knowing how much of that still stood. He had only been a child when his Prince had kept him.

Tenebrae still seemed to float, still connected by endless flights of stairs, and he could hear the whispers of her people, about Aranea, about the blind man and the tall man and were they going to fix it? Was the Starscourge back? Had Lucis pulled the Crystal from the sea for nothing? Was it all happening again?

He didn't have an answer for them.

Aranea didn't address the people either, took Ignis and Gladio into a building, he could hear electronic doors, sealing shut, closing them in with whatever it was that had been found. He could feel it in the air, a hissing, whispering, cold thing, dormant but alive. So very, very alive. He could feel it in the back of his throat like nausea. Hanging in the air, watching. Waiting. The ring burned on his finger and he longed to rip it off, to throw it off of the cliffs of Tenebrae and let it lie there. But no. That was what the thing wanted. That oily, swirling black thing he could see so well. The only thing he could see, it reached out for him like claws.

"It's not moving." Gladio told him. "Looks kind of like an oil slick, only, you know, thicker. Weird texture."

"Don't touch it." He whispered.

"Ignis? What's wrong?"

"I said don't touch it Gladio!"

"Hey, hey, calm down." Aranea interjected. "No one's touching it. We found it in the palace. Five so far, but this is the only one that survived being moved. Some people say they can see it moving, but nothing quantifiable. Thought, you know, since you two have the most experience with the Scourge and the daemons, you might know more than me."

"Destroy it." Ignis didn't pause in his assessment. "Immediately. Burn the Palace if you have to but this thing cannot survive."

"What is it?"

"I don't know that I can explain properly."

No, he could. Of course he could. What he didn't know was if it could be destroyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please yell at me to continue via aftepes.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the poem "Darkness" by George Gordon, Lord Byron.  
> https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/darkness
> 
> aftepes.tumblr.com


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